


Besties

by misslonelyhearts



Category: Sleepy Hollow (TV)
Genre: Gen, Jenny Mills - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-10-07
Updated: 2013-10-07
Packaged: 2017-12-28 18:44:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 543
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/995253
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/misslonelyhearts/pseuds/misslonelyhearts





	Besties

_Don’t be afraid of number 49._  
  
That was the aggravation, though.  Tell someone not to think of a pink elephant, a warm slice of pie, and that’s all they can do.  A number’s just a number until it’s not. A person’s just your sister until she’s not. Goddamn Corbin.  And there was his face like he’d just told her not to think of him.  
  
Abbie parked the Jeep with a hard jolt.    
  
Ichabod didn’t struggle with the door, and she almost missed that particular quirk.  
  
They stood together in front of a nondescript block of apartments, mostly abandoned, the brick facade muddled brownblack and gray where the streetlights didn’t touch.  At least the city had kept mowing the yard.  She handed Ichabod a flashlight, switching it on for him.  
  
“Do you think she will…seek retribution?”  he said, holding the light upright like a torch at first, and then correcting himself.

  
“We’re not going to be besties or anything but no,” Abbie replied.  She swept her flashlight over the four steps of the front stoop. “I don’t think Jenny’s going to murder me in my sleep.”  
  
Helpfully, the front door had no knob, so Abbie toed it open and motioned for Ichabod after clearing the foyer.    
  
“Best-ees?” he said, joining her.  His flashlight swung in an unsteady arc from doorway to doorway, stopping at the staircase.  
  
“Best friends.”  
  
Empty.  Lived-in and then empty. Animal activity. Abbie scanned the rooms and then moved to a broken doorframe to the left of the stairs.  He’d press.  He always-  
  
“You are sisters,” Ichabod pressed.  “Surely that bond supersedes the tragic circum-”  
  
“Do you have siblings?” She stopped and cut him a look over her shoulder.  
  
Standing in the silty pale light that trickled down the staircase Ichabod looked ten years old, and then all of two hundred and fifty.  Wind ran down the stairs, chilly and quick, from some broken window on the upper floor.  
  
“The better question is ‘ _did_  I have them?’” he said.  He pointed his flashlight up and Abbie watched him shiver.  “Regardless, the answer remains the same. Yes.”  
  
She’d never seen that, never seen him dodge so poorly.  
  
“Then you know that they’re the people who’re always there for you. They understand you.  And, they know how to push you to the edge better than anyone else in the world.”  Abbie kicked at the torn-away moulding around the door.  “But they also know when  _not_  to.”   
  
 _Or, they’re supposed to._  
  
Ichabod nodded.  She advanced, taking the stairs past him.  
  
“Though the same is true, I’ve found, of valued friends,” said Ichabod.  “And lovers.”  
  
The upper floor was brighter and colder, both due to the busted picture window on the landing. Her skin itched like crazy, just over her belly button where the scorpion sting was probably still puckered and swollen.  Abbie scanned with the flashlight, rubbing her stomach absently, and said,  “Yeah, but those you can walk away from.”  
  
“Shouldn’t family be different? I mean, naturally.”  
  
When she turned to him on the step below her, she found Ichabod scratching faintly at his stomach, too. He swallowed, wide eyed in the cramped stairway, and let his hand drop.  
  
“Don’t know,” she said with a tight smile, “Ask Jenny when we find her.”


End file.
